


All The Dreams We Had

by ImpishTubist



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 12:24:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19425934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpishTubist/pseuds/ImpishTubist
Summary: This time will be different, Aziraphale thinks. This time, Crowley will remember.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Queen's "All Dead, All Dead".

The first time Crowley falls for him, they’re in a garden.

Aziraphale doesn’t know that for almost four thousand years, not until after they’ve spent three days watching the son of God suffocate on a cross while begging for his Father, and then gotten spectacularly drunk after. He doesn’t know it until Crowley closes the last inch of space between them, his breath hot on Aziraphale’s mouth, and kisses the wine from his lips.

He pulls away, murmuring, “I’ve wanted to do that for _agesss_ ,” and Aziraphale thinks, _oh._

It shouldn’t have felt that good, that _right_. Even though it was only the briefest of touches, his mouth tingles for hours after–a gentle warning that coming into contact with a demon for too long can burn him from the inside out.

Aziraphale doesn’t care. He should care, _oh_ , he knows that he should. And he _does_ care, for about fifteen hundred years after. They don’t mention it again until Crowley flicks his hand and makes _Hamlet_ a hit, a sensation, a story for the ages, and Aziraphale is so overcome with _happiness_ that he utterly forgets himself and kisses Crowley in a dimly-lit corner of a dimly-lit tavern, heedless of the noise and press of bodies around them. Crowley kisses back like a man starved, and it goes on for quite some time, given that neither of them need to breathe.

“How long?” he murmurs finally against Crowley’s mouth, his lips stinging.

“Since you gave away that sword.” Crowley tucks a lock of Aziraphale’s hair behind his ear. His thumb traces its way down Aziraphale’s cheek, brushes over his lips. No one’s paying them any mind. Even so, Aziraphale draws back slightly.

“Not here, my dear,” he says softly, as though he hadn’t initiated it. As though he doesn’t _want_ this, doesn’t need it with every fiber of his being.

“No one cares, angel.” Aziraphale doesn’t remember when it became an endearment, when Crowley went from calling him _Angel_ to _angel_. Sometime in the centuries before Christ, before they even dared to touch. “If they can ignore what Will Shakespeare and Kit Marlowe get up to in the shadows, they can bloody well ignore us.”

“Christopher Marlowe is dead,” Aziraphale says blankly.

“That’s what he wants everyone to think, anyway. Come here.”

Aziraphale goes, firmly pushing all thoughts of demons and temptation out of his mind. Is it truly a temptation if Crowley didn’t even have to try, if it’s what he’s wanted for centuries? Is it truly a sin if all Aziraphale feels is love, so much so that it’s brimming from him and suffuses his whole being?

Their human-shaped corporations are a funny thing, Aziraphale thinks hazily as Crowley works his lips along his jaw. He can _feel_ , probably as much as any human can. He doesn’t have nerves, but sensation sings through him at the mere touch of Crowley’s lips, his hands, his fingertips. Heat coils behind where his sternum would be, and the sounds that spill from him are _obscene_. If he had the parts for it, he would be aroused right now. He could manifest some for himself, but he’s never much seen the point. Crowley hasn’t bothered to make the effort, either–and Aziraphale would know, because somehow he’s ended up on Crowley’s lap.

When it becomes too much, when the pleasant heat takes on a tinge of pain that can’t be ignored any longer, Aziraphale draws reluctantly away. Crowley’s lips are red, the skin around them pink and irritated. He keeps his hands fisted in Aziraphale’s shirt, not touching his flesh.

“We aren’t meant to do this,” Aziraphale says quietly. He looks down at his own red palms and flexes his fingers, feeling the tight pull of overheated skin.

Crowley leans in, his lips a hair’s breadth from Aziraphale’s.

“Has that ever stopped me before, angel?”

***

They quickly learn it's better to wear layers, as many as possible, when they want to be in close proximity. Touching skin-to-skin isn't impossible–it feels _divine_ , even, until it doesn't. Usually they can last an hour, sometimes a few minutes longer, before they have to stop. Before they risk doing true damage to each other, and that's one line neither of them will cross. Once, Aziraphale quite forgets himself, and it's half a decade before Crowley forgives himself for the resulting blisters that bubbled up under Aziraphale's skin, blisters that had no earthly origin and couldn't be miracled away by either of them. They healed, slowly, too slowly for them to be natural burns, and it takes months of persuasion before Crowley will touch him again.

They spend as much time apart as they do together, each tending to his own side's business, and sometimes it alarms Aziraphale that he'd rather be with Crowley–a _demon,_ the one who Fell, the Serpent in the Garden. But mostly he's made his peace with it. After all, how can love be anything but Good?

He doesn't realize–he doesn't even _consider_ –that Crowley feels the same until the early seventeenth century. William Shakespeare dies on a damp spring morning, and Aziraphale mourns for weeks. He holes himself up in his rented rooms and drinks and pores over his copy of _Hamlet_ for the ninety-sixth time. Someday, he thinks, he'd like to own a bookshop, and there will be an entire section devoted to Shakespeare.

Crowley doesn't occupy his thoughts during this period, as he often does, and Aziraphale is quite surprised when a pounding on his door before dawn one day reveals the demon standing on the other side of it.

“Brought you something, angel,” Crowley says without preamble, shoving a package into Aziraphale's hands. “Got any wine?”

“It's five in the morning,” Aziraphale says absently, but he's preoccupied with the string that holds the package closed. He undoes the knot, peels off the paper, and finds himself holding a sheaf of parchment. “What's this?”

“Plays,” Crowley says. He's found the wine and finishes pouring them two glasses. “Couple of unfinished ones. Nicked them from ol' Will's house when his widow wasn't looking.”

Aziraphale almost drops the papers, remembers what he's holding, and instead clutches them to his chest. He whirls on Crowley. “You _what_? Crowley, you can't steal from–from _Shakespeare_! From a dead man!”

Crowley lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Why not? He's not using them anymore.”

“It isn't _right_.”

“Way I see it, it is,” Crowley says stubbornly. “Look, what's the harm? You _love_ Shakespeare. Who better to have his final plays than you? No one else will take the same amount of care with them. No one else will _appreciate_ them like you do. Or would you rather they be lost forever?”

“No,” Aziraphale says, recoiling in horror. The very _idea_ of it nauseates him, and he doesn't even have the ability to throw up.

“There you have it, then. The only copies of William Shakespeare's final, unfinished works belong to you. Don't lose them.” Crowley lifts his glass to Aziraphale. “Cheers.”

Aziraphale grabs him by the collar and kisses him. The wine is quickly forgotten.

“You know, angel,” Crowley says sometime later, as they’re sprawled across the couch, wings unfurled and clothes discarded, “if I’d known that was what did it for you, I would’ve stolen those plays _ages_ ago.”

Aziraphale raps his knuckles fondly against Crowley’s chest and mutters, “Stop it. You wouldn’t dare. You know I’d stop speaking to you.”

“Sure, for about ten minutes.” Crowley noses his hair and adds quietly, “It was worth it, you know, for the look on your face when you realized what you were holding. I’d do anything for that look again. You know I would.”

Aziraphale shifts. With so much bare skin pressed together, the heat is starting to become uncomfortable. He doesn’t want to move, but the thought of burning Crowley is enough to make him reach for his discarded shirt and trousers.

“Not yet, we’ve got a few more minutes,” Crowley cajoles, but already the skin at his hip is red and pebbling, and the rash will only spread from there. 

“I’m sorry, my dear.” Aziraphale kisses him gently, and it stings. “Perhaps in a few hours.”

Crowley falls asleep before then, of course. He’s a cold-blooded creature, quite literally–give him a warm room and a pile of blankets, and he’s out for the night. Or sometimes for the year, or even for the next decade. That depends entirely on his mood.

Aziraphale is reasonably certain Crowley is content enough to wake up in the morning and spend the day with him, so he putters about until then. He rations the unfinished plays, only reading a page at a time between cups of tea, realizing that only two beings in the whole of creation have ever laid eyes on these words–him, and William Shakespeare. It’s a dizzying thought.

When Crowley finally does wake, it’s well after sunrise. It’s only when a beam of warm sunlight streams through the window and hits the couch that he shifts and stretches languidly, slowly swimming back to consciousness. Aziraphale fixes another cup of tea, and hands it off to him as Crowley sits up.

“Must’ve been some kind of night last night,” Crowley observes, surveying his clothes strewn about the room. He retracts his wings and dresses like it pains him. He must not have sobered up in time, and is now contending with a very human hangover.

“You could say that,” Aziraphale says, resting his chin in one hand and smiling at Crowley. He knows he must look a fool, and doesn’t care. Crowley comes over to where he’s seated at the table and cocks his head, serpent eyes skimming over the text.

“You and your books,” Crowley says, touching the pages– _almost_ fondly, mostly in exasperation. “Where'd you get this, then?”

“What do you mean?” Aziraphale blinks at him.

“Is this Shakespeare?” Crowley's eyes widen behind his sunglasses as he flips through the manuscript. “Is this _unfinished_ Shakespeare?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says slowly. Cold horror blooms in his chest. “Didn’t you know that?”

Crowley shakes his head, laughing softly. “I didn't know you had it in you, angel. Stealing from a dead man. Are you sure you're not one of us?”

“I didn't–” Aziraphale's voice falters and fails him. “Crowley, what do you remember about yesterday?”

“Yesterday?” Crowley frowns. “I came over, we got drunk, talked about gorillas, and I passed out on your couch. Why?”

“Yes, but _why_ did you come to see me yesterday?” Aziraphale presses.

“I dunno.” Crowley shrugs. “I was in town, thought I'd see what you were up to.”

Aziraphale's mind races. What in Heaven is happening? Could he have hallucinated the previous day? He's not drunk, he didn't even get mildly tipsy last night.

“Did you bring anything over?” he tries.

“No, don’t think so.” Crowley grins at him, and Aziraphale catches a brief flash of too-sharp teeth. “Just my brilliant personality.”

“Do you remember May 6, 1601?” he asks, resisting the urge to grab Crowley by the shoulders and shake him. “The night at the tavern?”

“After you dragged me to _Hamlet_ for the fifth time? 'Course I do. What about it?”

“What happened that night?”

“We watched a play, I didn't stab my eyes out in boredom, and then we got drunk.”

“That's...” Aziraphale trails off. “Is that all?”

“Yes?” Crowley's looking at him strangely. “It was hardly an eventful night, Angel.”

 _Angel_. The title, this time, not the endearment.

“Denmark,” Aziraphale says, a little desperately. “1602.”

“The meteor shower?” Crowley asks. “What about it?”

 _What about it?_ Aziraphale can still feel the burning trail of Crowley's kisses down his chest and torso, against his inner thighs and the backs of his knees; can close his eyes and still see the faint red marks his hands left on Crowley's back as he pressed them together. The meteors had been magnificent, but they were nothing compared to the starbursts that exploded behind his closed eyelids as Crowley kissed his neck.

Aziraphale reaches out and touches Crowley’s wrist. Crowley snatches his hand away and backs up a step. Crowley has never withdrawn from him before, and something inside of Aziraphale shrivels and dies.

“Spain,” he says hollowly. “1614. That night in the castle. Do you remember?”

They’d both been assigned to the area by their respective offices for a temptation and a blessing, and it had been Crowley’s idea to make something of a holiday of it.

But Crowley looks at him blankly. “I didn’t go to Spain, Angel. You did. What’s wrong with you?”

Aziraphale stares at him, mind reeling. Crowley doesn't remember their time together–or, more accurately, he remembers but his memories are incorrect. Has everything he knew about them been forgotten? Or simply rewritten?

 _He'll never believe me_ , Aziraphale thinks helplessly. He wouldn't, in Crowley's position. An angel and a demon? Impossible.

“Nothing, dear boy,” he says, mouth inexplicably dry. “Would you care for some water? You look dreadful.”

“This blessed corporation.” Crowley sprawls inelegantly on the couch and drapes an arm over his eyes. “Don’t even know what it’s good for, anyway.”

***

Aziraphale does what he always does when a problem presents itself that he has no solution for: he reads.

He buries himself in books for almost a decade, Scripture and philosophy and mythology and everything in-between, searching for even the slightest _clue_ as to what’s happened to Crowley. He doesn’t find any answers. He only knows what his own experience tells him–that whatever happened between them during those too-brief fifteen years has been rewritten in Crowley’s mind. He remembers the same events that Aziraphale experienced with him, only differently. To Crowley’s mind, they have never kissed, not even drunkenly. The Arrangement is still in place, but that’s all.

Has he fallen into a different reality? Stumbled through a rift and not realized it? Aziraphale doesn’t believe that’s the case–everything else about his world is exactly the same. Perhaps it’s _Crowley_ who has stumbled into the wrong dimension, but there’s no evidence for that, either.

He has learned, throughout his centuries on this rock, that the simplest explanation is usually the right one, no matter how outlandish. Crowley’s memories are simply _altered_ , and Aziraphale has no idea how. Or _why_.

***

It's a sunny day in 1687 when Crowley takes his hand.

They're strolling through a deserted park, and Aziraphale is mid-sentence when fingers brush his and then latch on casually. He grinds to a halt and stares at Crowley, who peers back at him through those ridiculous sunglasses.

“This alright, angel?” he asks quietly.

“Crowley, I–” Aziraphale stammers, and Crowley drops his hand.

“Sorry. I mis-read things.”

“You didn't,” Aziraphale blurts. “You only...took me by surprise, that's all.”

Crowley snorts. “Of course I did. Fifty-six hundred years on this rock, we've had only each other for practically all of it, and you _still_ didn't see that I–”

He breaks off, frustrated.

 _But I did see,_ Aziraphale wants to scream. _I did see, and so did you, only you forgot and I never did._

“I'm sorry, my dear,” is what he says instead. A small flicker of something like hope comes alive in his chest. “Can I make it up to you?”

He goes up on the balls of his feet and presses his mouth to Crowley's. The park is empty; there's no one around to witness the literal _sparks_ when their lips meet. Crowley's arms go around his waist. Aziraphale melts against him; for a moment, Crowley is all that's holding him upright.

It’s shorter this time–fifteen, twenty minutes before their skin starts to burn and they have to pull away.

“I’ve wanted to do that for _centuriessss_ ,” Crowley says, forgetting himself enough to hiss.

“Have you?” Aziraphale says, absently straightening Crowley’s collar and _not_ thinking about the handful of decades that have passed between this kiss and the last. A drop in the bucket, compared to their lifespans, and yet it felt like an eternity. “Well, my dear, it seems we have a lot to make up for.”

This time will be different, he thinks as Crowley lowers his mouth to his. This time, Crowley will remember.

***

Aziraphale spends seventy years waiting for the day when Crowley looks at him with blank yellow eyes and asks him what the Hell he thinks he’s doing, but it never comes. Every touch is readily accepted, every kiss is greedily taken and hungrily returned.

It's a crystal-cold winter night in 1758 when Crowley puts a hand on Aziraphale's forearm, forestalling whatever he'd been about to say, and points at the sky. The bright smear of light above the treetops is something Aziraphale hasn't seen in centuries, and he lets out a wistful sigh. Comets are especially lovely when seen from Earth, he thinks.

“I made that one, you know,” Crowley says softly.

“Oh, my dear. Really?” Aziraphale says, delightedly. “I should have known, of course. It's beautiful.”

“Only the best for you, angel,” Crowley says, and kisses him, and Aziraphale refrains from mentioning that the comet was around for centuries before the Garden. Before _them_.

“What is it called?” he asks. Crowley grows still.

“It doesn’t have a name yet,” he says after a moment. “Next year, someone will call it Halley.”

“Well, it must be called something now,” Aziraphale says. He puts a hand on Crowley’s knee, the fabric of his trousers protecting both of them. They can’t touch for long, these days–ten minutes, at most. The time grows shorter with every decade. “ _You_ must have named it something.”

Crowley turns his face to the sky. He’s quiet for a while, and Aziraphale wonders–not for the first time–what he’s thinking. Where he goes when he slips into silences like this. He wishes he could crawl inside Crowley’s skin, his mind, and know him from the inside out. Lay him bare, for Aziraphale and Aziraphale only to see.

“Aziraphale.” Crowley’s turned back to him. “Why’s your hand on my knee?”

Aziraphale snatches it back, recoiling as if burned. _No, no, not again._

“I’m sorry,” he stammers. “I only–fell. You caught me. Thank you, dear boy, I appreciate it.”

“Too much wine,” Crowley says knowingly. “Come on, sober up. I’ll take you home.”

“What about the comet?” Aziraphale asks, a little desperately.

Crowley shrugs. “What about it? It’ll still be visible for another year. You can look at it anytime you like. Come on, it’s freezing out here.”

He gets to his feet and strides off, leaving Aziraphale sitting alone in the middle of the field.

***

The first time Crowley brings up the holy water, they’re in bed.

The nineteenth century so far has been stifling and disgusting. Smog clogs the air, and most of the buildings in London are coated with a fine layer of black grime. Aziraphale feels as though he’s choking on it, on all that pollution and misery, and the only bright spot in it all is Crowley. They kissed on a night in St. James’s Park in 1819, for what Crowley believes was the first time, and only days before he was called away on business for his side that he still won’t discuss with Aziraphale.

He’s been back now for just under five weeks, and they’ve spent nearly all that time holed up together in Aziraphale’s rooms–naked, wings out, sprawled on the bed with a safe six inches between them. They touch, occasionally–wings brushing, fingertips skimming over chests and backsides, not long enough to burn but enough to say _I’m here, I’m here._

“I need a favor,” Crowley says abruptly, voice pitched low. Aziraphale lifts his head from where he had been resting it on folded arms and gives Crowley a languid smile.

“Of course. What is it?”

Crowley looks away from him. “Holy water.”

“Beg pardon?”

“How easily can you procure some?”

“That depends on why you’re asking.” Aziraphale sits up. “What do you want it for?”

“Insurance.”

“ _Insurance_?” Aziraphale sputters.

“I don’t need much. A few cups will do.”

Aziraphale can’t believe they’re having this conversation, can’t believe that Crowley would ask this of him. He stumbles from the bed, reaching for his clothes as he tucks his wings away, angrily pulling on his trousers and shirt.

“I think it’d be best if you left,” he says curtly.

“Come on, angel,” Crowley implores. “It can’t possibly be that difficult for you to obtain. No one will notice–”

“That’s not the issue!” Aziraphale rounds on him, and for a terrifying instant, the words are on the tip of his tongue: _You fall in love with me and forget about it every century, and I don’t, and it’s hard enough watching you forget everything about us. I feel like a part of you dies every time. A part of_ me _dies every time. I won’t be the one to kill you as well._ He settles on, “I won’t hand you a suicide pill. It’s a sin. More than that, I won’t be the one responsible for destroying you. Now get out, please.”

Crowley doesn’t bring it up again until 1862, after another reset. Aziraphale hasn’t heard from him in almost five years when Crowley comes to stand next to him in the park and hands him the note.

Aziraphale doesn’t remember what he says. He sees white, and then he’s walking away from Crowley, the note crumpled in his fist. He tosses it in the water, and doesn’t look back.

***

The span between the twentieth century’s great wars is only twenty years, a blink of an eye for them. Crowley falls in love with Aziraphale in the trenches of the first, and is still in love with him on the eve of the second. And then there is Dunkirk, and the deaths of eighty thousand humans, and Aziraphale is still reeling from the misery that saturates the country when Crowley blinks open his eyes one morning and asks why he's sleeping in the angel's bed–and come to think of it, when _did_ Aziraphale acquire one?

 _It wasn't long enough_ , Aziraphale wants to scream. The space between resets is growing shorter and shorter. Only twenty years this time–what will it be after this? Ten? Five? What happens when Crowley forgets about them every other day, every other hour? 

He starts to go on long flights at night. Between the darkness and the blackouts, no humans can see him, and he’s found that flying clears his mind in ways that nothing else does. He can’t think about Crowley, about the years that are being stolen from them, about how now even standing too close to the demon causes him to break out in a tremendous rash.

The thoughts whirl about in his mind tonight anyway, and the absentmindedness costs him. Something collides with his wing, knocking him violently off-course, and the white-hot agony is so overwhelming that he doesn’t even notice plummeting to the ground.

Somehow–bleeding, broken, reeling from the pain–he makes it back to his bookshop. He stumbles in the door and reaches for the phone, dialing blindly, and then drags himself to the kitchen for a bottle of whiskey.

He’s downed almost half of it by the time Crowley arrives.

“Bloody hell, Angel.” He’s at Aziraphale’s side in an instant, staring at the mangled wing in horror, hands hovering a few inches away from it. “What happened?”

“Clipped a plane,” Aziraphale says thickly.

“What the _hell_ were you doing–never mind, it doesn’t matter.” Crowley helps him over to the couch and coaxes Aziraphale to lay on his stomach, his good wing sweeping the floor and the other propped up against the cushions. He’ll never be able to get the blood out, he thinks absently, and it isn’t worth the miracle. He’ll have to buy a new one.

It’s a tricky business, fixing the wing when they can barely stand to touch each other. Crowley procures a pair of thick gloves that he wears while he cuts away the bits of bone and matter, plucks the damaged feathers, and disinfects what’s left of the wing. He bandages it tightly, and then there’s nothing more to be done than let it heal on its own. Aziraphale _needs_ the aid of another angel, but all he wants is Crowley.

Crowley forces what’s left of the whiskey down his throat and tells him to sleep it off. Aziraphale’s never been much good at sleeping, not seeing the appeal the way that Crowley does, but this time it comes easily to him. He’s out for twenty-four hours. When he blinks his way to consciousness again, Crowley is still there.

“How’s it feel?” Crowley brings him a cup of tea. Aziraphale sits up gingerly, wincing as the movement jostles the wing.

“Better,” he says. He’ll have to contend with someone Upstairs later to regrow the wing, and he doesn’t want to contemplate Gabriel’s reaction when he finds out. But for now, that’s a problem for the future. “Thank you. I didn’t...I didn’t know who else to call.”

“Me,” Crowley says firmly. “You always call me. Understood?”

Aziraphale recognizes that tone of voice. He’s heard it often enough over the centuries that he knows now where this is leading–Crowley has fallen for him, again, and Aziraphale doesn’t know if he can do this. He knows that he will, anyway. It’s inevitable.

Crowley sits next to him. Aziraphale reaches up with both hands and carefully slides the sunglasses from Crowley’s face.

“Much better,” he murmurs. “You don’t need to wear these around me, my dear.”

Crowley smiles softly and leans in–

–and Aziraphale watches as his face goes utterly blank. Crowley freezes for a second, then two, then three. On the fourth, he draws back, blinking rapidly.

“Where are my sunglasses?” he demands, hands feeling his face as though he might find them there.

“You dropped them.” Aziraphale is still holding them, and Crowley plucks them from his fingers. He swallows and adds, “Are you alright, dear boy?”

He remembers at the last second not to say _my dear_.

“Of course,” Crowley says, snappish. He puts the sunglasses back on his face, safely hiding his eyes, and still manages to fix Aziraphale with a glower. “No more nighttime excursions when there’s a raid on, yeah? I perform any more demonic miracles, and Downstairs is going to have a few questions for me that I’d rather not have to answer.”

It takes a year for Crowley to fall for him again, a year until the air raid and the church and the books; a year before Aziraphale finds himself pressed up against a brick wall and exchanging desperate, burning kisses.

Crowley’s forgotten again by morning.

***

Aziraphale doesn’t know what it says about him, doesn’t know what it _means_ , that the thermos is warm in his hands. Holy water should have no effect on him. He passes it off to Crowley, gently as he can, and Crowley gives no outward sign of discomfort as he holds the thermos. Aziraphale doesn’t know what that means, either.

Crowley asks to give him a lift; Aziraphale knows what will happen if he accepts.

“You go too fast for me, Crowley,” he says quietly. The time between resets is shorter now, but so too is the time it takes Crowley to fall for him all over again. Aziraphale misses Crowley’s touches _desperately_ , but he can’t do this again so soon. He gets out of the Bentley and tries not to look back.

***

The years turn into decades, and when it comes down to it, Aziraphale is a weak creature. Crowley falls for him twenty-two times in the latter half of the twentieth century–and twenty-two times, Aziraphale lets him. Each time Crowley forgets, Aziraphale tells himself it doesn’t hurt, and that he’s grateful for the time they _did_ have–even if it’s only a day, or only a moment. He relishes every one, and each one cuts him like glass.

And then there’s a baby in a basket, and the beginning of the end. There’s another reset, this one crueler than all the others, because now they have so little time left. 

Eleven years pass before Aziraphale allows himself to think of it again.

***

The last time Crowley falls in love with him, it’s the end of the world.

This time, there are no frantic kisses, no desperate touches. They’re in a gazebo in the middle of the park, and Crowley asks– _begs_ –Aziraphale to come away with him.

“It’s a big universe,” he says frantically. “We can go off together.”

“Go off...together?” Aziraphale echoes blankly. This can’t be happening _again_ , not so close to the end.

He’s as vicious as he can be, telling Crowley that they aren’t friends–telling him that it’s _over_. It’s the hardest thing he’s ever had to do, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from taking the words back. Crowley reels slightly, like he honestly hadn’t expected it.

“Have a nice Doomsday,” he tosses over his shoulder as he storms off, and Aziraphale wonders if it’s the last time they’ll ever see each other.

***

It isn’t. Crowley asks Aziraphale to come away with him for a second time, and for the second time Aziraphale says no. He’s raw and hollowed out, aching with this most recent loss, when he gets discorporated. He finds Crowley soon after, drinking himself into a stupor, and wishes he could weep. How did it come to this? What did either of them ever do to deserve it?

It ends, finally, at an airbase in Tadfield.

“Why are you two people?” the Antichrist asks. “You should be two _separate_ people.”

All at once Aziraphale has a body again, _his_ own body again, and he’s barely processed this when the Antichrist turns to Crowley.

“And you,” the boy gestures at Crowley's forehead, “need to _remember_.”

Crowley's entire body jerks backward. He stumbles and goes down to one knee. He clutches his head, lets out a low moan. Aziraphale rushes to him.

“Crowley?” He reaches out to touch the demon's shoulder before he remembers, and withdraws his hand. “My dear, are you–”

Crowley lifts his head, yellow eyes wide and unblinking. His sunglasses are on the ground, in pieces under his knee.

“Aziraphale,” he says, voice thick, like his tongue is too large for his mouth. He stares at Aziraphale like he’s seeing him for the first time. “ _Aziraphale_.”

Aziraphale imagines that if he had a heart, it would be doing something interesting in his chest right now. If he could breathe, he would have stopped.

“Yes?” he whispers, hoping against hope–

But there isn’t time. The world is ending, and there isn’t _time_. Until Crowley quite literally _makes_ time, sending them to a pocket of reality for a few precious minutes, so Adam can make a choice.

Adam chooses Earth, chooses his father. And when it’s over, Crowley rounds on him and bellows, “ _Why did I forget?_ ”

“Dunno.” Adam gives a shrug. “Part of your punishment, I s’pose.”

“ _What?”_ Crowley is apoplectic. Aziraphale has never seen him like this, not even when his side gave him a commendation for the Black Plague and he drank himself into oblivion for almost two decades.

“You can’t have what you love. You’ll always forget them, always burn them, and burn _because_ of them.” Adam brightens abruptly, looking like the eleven-year-old human boy he now is. “But I fixed it, see? You remember.”

“I remem–” Crowley jabs a finger at Aziraphale, who flinches. “ _Two thousand years_ , Aziraphale. Two thousand years! In all that time, it never occurred to you to tell me–”

“Of course it occurred to me!” Aziraphale hates how his voice skitters up the scale, and wrestles it back under control. “But how would that have gone? What did you expect me to say? _Sorry, darling, we’re in love but you don’t remember it._ ”

“Yes, for a start!” Crowley’s staring at him, hurt and betrayal written all over his features, and Aziraphale wants to scream. Why is this _his_ fault? “I asked you to come away with me. I asked you _twice_. We could’ve gone away together, and maybe–”

“Maybe what?” Aziraphale demands. “Maybe I would spend the rest of eternity watching you fall in love, forget, fall in love, forget? What kind of a life is that for me, Crowley? No. I love you–I love you more than _the Earth itself_ , but I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. It hurts too much.”

Crowley stares at him, mouth open, but for once it seems he has nothing to say.

“But I fixed him,” Adam pipes in helpfully. “He remembers.”

“He remembers,” Aziraphale says wearily. “But then he’ll forget.”

“No,” Adam says stubbornly. “I _fixed him_. Like I fixed the world. He remembers, and he’s not gonna forget again.”

Treacherous hope blooms in his chest. Aziraphale stares at Adam, and then at Crowley.

“What–”

“I asked you if that ever stopped me before.” Crowley takes a step toward him, and then another. “In that tavern. May 6, 1601. You said that we shouldn’t be doing this, and I asked you if that had ever stopped me before.”

“My dear…” Aziraphale trails off. It’s the first time in over four hundred years that Crowley has recalled that conversation correctly. “And–and the meteor shower?”

“What meteor shower? I was too busy worshipping you to notice.”

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Aziraphale says helplessly.

“Why not? I’ve already Fallen.” Crowley cups his face, thumb stroking his cheek. It doesn’t burn, and Aziraphale _whimpers_ at the drag of Crowley’s skin against his own. “Twice now, as it happens.”

Aziraphale’s lips part easily under the press of Crowley’s mouth. The kiss warm and familiar, and still sends an electric thrill down his spine. It’s not a first kiss–this has none of that desperation, that _neediness_. This is a kiss they’ve had a thousand times before, and now Crowley _remembers_ that. It’s no longer up to Aziraphale to carry the weight of their shared history alone.

“This isn’t over,” he murmurs against Crowley’s lips.

“Mm. No, I don’t suppose it is.” Crowley grips his hands, curling his long fingers around Aziraphale’s, and Aziraphale marvels at their soft warmth. Not the warning heat of a slow-building burn, just _Crowley_. “Deal with it tomorrow, yeah?”

“Tomorrow,” Aziraphale agrees, and pulls him in again.


	2. Epilogue

The odd thing about it is, Crowley still has both sets of memories.

He knows now, of course, which ones are real and which ones were planted. He can remember having _experienced_ the ones that are real, while the re-written memories have a tinge of unreality to them. He can call up the memory, if he wants to, but it doesn’t feel like one he ever _lived_. More like a television show he’s watching in his mind, slightly disconnected from the rest of his memories.

He doesn’t know, in the end, which side was responsible for it. Adam called it a punishment, but a punishment from whom? From Heaven, for having Fallen? From Hell, for being a traitor in their minds? He’ll never know, and as Aziraphale constantly tells him, it doesn’t matter now. Their respective offices have been _persuaded_ to leave them alone, and so far neither side has come calling.

It won’t last–Crowley still believes The Big One has yet to occur–but he’ll take the peace while he can. He figures they’re owed this, after six thousand years.

“Got another one, angel,” he murmurs quietly, smoothing the grey feather into place among the rest. Aziraphale’s new feathers have come in grey more often than not these past few years–but then, so have his own. They’re not sure what it means. Angels and demons don’t age, but then, Aziraphale’s theory is that neither of them are entirely angelic or demonic anymore. They’re...something else.

Crowley doesn’t particularly care what it means. As long as he can remain here with the angel, that’s all that matters to him.

“Truly?” Crowley finds it amusing that, for all his vanity, _he’s_ not the one most distressed about the feathers. He rather likes the look of them in his own wings, in fact–they appear almost silver amid the black. Aziraphale seems to believe that his _dull_ his wings, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

“It’s lovely.” Crowley leans over him, brushing his lips against the back of Aziraphale’s neck, eliciting a shiver. “Beautiful, just like the rest of you.”

“You old serpent,” Aziraphale says fondly. He’s stretched out on his stomach on their bed, and he gives the right wing a slight shake. “You haven’t finished.”

Raphael had done a remarkable job healing and regrowing the wing, but Crowley can still see what is new growth and what was always there. Sometimes, when he closes his eyes, he can see the mangled wing, and Aziraphale dripping blood on the floor of his beloved bookshop.

Crowley pushes all thought of Aziraphale, bleeding and broken, out of his mind. He concentrates on the feathers, moving them into place, smoothing the oil over them so they stay waterproof and moisturized, removing the dust that accumulates due to the hours Aziraphale spends poring over old books. They have stopped keeping up pretenses about running a bookshop–anytime a human approaches the store, they remember they suddenly have somewhere else to be, or their eyes glide over the sign without taking in what it is. Most humans don’t notice the structure at all. They keep the blinds drawn and their wings out, and it’s the happiest Crowley can ever remember feeling. Even the time spent in Heaven before his Fall is nothing compared to this.

Aziraphale is putty in his hands by the time he’s done, and it’s an easy matter to roll him onto his back. Crowley sprawls on top of him, tangling their legs together, pressing as close as he possibly can. They can stay like this for hours and hours and hours, and never once get burned. Aziraphale’s hands travel up his back, brush over his wings, and Crowley hisses in delight.

“I love you, my dear,” Aziraphale says quietly.

Crowley kisses him. When he pulls away, minutes or hours later, he says, “Do you ever wonder if God planned all this? Knew this was going to happen all along?”

“I like to think so,” Aziraphale says. “Not the memory loss bit, of course, but the rest of it... _us_. Yes. And even if God didn’t, I rather think it was, well–”

“Ineffable?”

Aziraphale’s smile is brilliant. “I was going to say _inevitable_.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can follow me on [Tumblr](https://impishtubist.tumblr.com/), where I'm currently screaming about Good Omens, and where in the past I've screamed about Star Trek, Doctor Who, Sherlock, and...well, anything else that strikes my fancy. I've been on a fanfic-writing hiatus this past year as I've pursued my own original writing, and now that I have some downtime between books, it's been amazing to get back into writing solely about characters and their feelings <3 
> 
> This story is ENTIRELY [Alston's](https://alstonnovak.tumblr.com/) fault and you should go yell at them about it.


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